Saturday, November 24, 2012

BBQ with our neighbours/colleagues

As we moved in our condo we discovered that we were not the only one from our company. There are five other colleagues with their family living in Tresalveo. There might be more in the future as I know that LongLong a colleague of mine is also considering this condo. Soon there will be no point going to the office, we can just take the function room and work from there.
The Japanese crowd was organizing a BBQ and Kimiko was nice enough to extend the invitation to us. A bit after 5pm we showed up with sausages and beer, in the true spirit of a German BBQ... so I've been told.
Each of us brought some elements for the BBQ but the majority came from BBQ Wholesale. Quid? It's an online service that provides everything you need for a BBQ: not only the food, but also the char coal, the paper plates and cups, the cooling box and ice to keep the drinks cold. You order online and everything you need for a BBQ is delivered to your doorstep. Isn't that great? that's for sure an address I will keep in mine for future BBQ.
While the men were working on the fire, the women were setting up the table... so stereotypical if you ask me.
We were a bit anxious about joining a Japanese BBQ mostly because everybody would be Japanese and we don't speak Japanese. It turned out that people made an effort to include us in the conversation at least 80% of the time which is really nice. It's also interesting to chat with people who like us have been living or traveling around the world. It's so funny how they are fascinating by Europe in a similar way we are fascinating about Asia. What is normal for us, is exotic for them and the other way around.
Because we were the two Europeans, we got to try everything they brought that was Japanese:
- Onigiri: these are rice balls or triangles filled with fish or vegetable. Quite good actually although very filling. It made me smile because that's the food I remember seeing kids eating in manga cartoons. Apparently it's typical for picnic, BBQ or any occasion when someone has to eat on the go
- Sauces: lots' of them. There was two for the beef, one for the noodles. All very good. No idea what was inside but I tried to remember what the bottle looks like in case I want to buys some in the future.
- Liquor: someone brought Japanese liquor which "like whiskey" can be drunk on the rock or diluted. If you asked me it tasted vaguely like vodka but not strong enough. Probably because it was only 27% alcohol.

While we were eating we talked a lot about moving to Singapore. Some of the concerns and experiences we had are the same for them. Japan is clearly different in terms of way of living vs. the rest of Asia and for Japanese, moving to Singapore is as crazy as it is for us to move from Europe. Something to do with moving from a developed country to a developing one, even if Singapore is probably the most developed of the developing.

Net, it was a good night with good food (too much food actually) and really nice people.




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